God's will and Dog's will

I was talking to someone on the phone this morning about expectations in romantic settings and whether expectations are legitimate. Sometimes people find relationships very difficult. You can buy very long books with lots of words in them about relationships. There are people you can pay money to, to talk about your relationships. There are even twelve-step fellowships to help you with relationships. There are hopes, fears, dreams, disappointments, grievances, demands, attempts to control and manipulate, and all sorts of other complicated things that people incorporate into their relationships.

The AA programme asks me to do God's will. Concretely, that means, 'Who does God want me to spend time with today?' plus 'How does God want me to be with that person?'

The second one is easy to define: patient, tolerant, kind, loving, useful. The first one is actually pretty simple: either God wants me to be with that person today, or God does not.

When you come into a room, and the dog is in its basket, it looks up. If it wants to hang out, it will pad or bound across to you and then do doggy things. If it doesn't, it will go back to sleep.

It is doing Dog's Will, which is pretty much the same as God's will.

Almost all of my relationship difficulties (and by 'relationship' I mean both romantic and non-romantic relationships) vanished when I decided to apply this simple question: Does God want me to see this person? If so, then I see them, and accept them as they are. When I succeed in doing this and do not complicate it, life is very simple.